TREATMENT OF CANKER. 451 



that, although treatment may prove successful in eradicating the 

 disease, yet should it do this and leave such deformity or disor- 

 ganization of foot as proves the cause of unsoundness, still will 

 the proprietor of the horse have reason to complain of the doctor's 

 work. Canker in any form is an intractable disease. In some 

 forms, indeed, it has been pronounced incurable; though I cannot 

 say, in my own sphere of practice, I remember to have found it so. 

 But we read in White's Farriery of its being " difficult of cure," 

 and not " unfrequently incurable;" and French writers of the 

 same date speak of it as " I'opprobre de notre art." 



The first Thing to be done, supposing this to be the 

 earliest treatment of the case, is to take off any shoe the 

 cankered foot may have on at the time, and, after paring down 

 all exuberant growth of horn, by well lowering the heels and 

 shortening the toe of the crust — anormal growths which such a 

 disease as canker is certain to produce — to subject the foot to 

 such close and thorough scrutiny, as shall, through the instru- 

 mentality of the drawing-knife, end in the removal of every por- 

 tion of dead, loose, or semi-detached horn, as well as any living 

 horn which maybe in immediate contact with the cankerous parts, 

 in such manner as not only to completely lay open the diseased 

 surfaces, sinuses, and crevices, but at the same time, as much as is 

 possible, to isolate them. All contact and communication between 

 sound and unsound parts must be cut oif ; and then, but not until 

 this be completely effected, are we to think about dressings. The 

 less hemorrhage we produce, in accomplishing these indispen- 

 sably necessary cuttings and parings, the better ; bleeding not 

 only being uncalled for, but tending to interfere with such opera- 

 tions, besides being unfavourable to the appHcation of dressing : 

 we must not, however, suffer hemorrhage to thwart us in our ob- 

 ject, one so important towards cure that, if not carried completely 

 out the first time of paring and dressing, certainly ought, on the 

 second occasion of dressing, to be put effectually into execution. 



The next Thing to be done, after the diseased foot has 

 been thoroughly searched and exposed by the drawing-knife, is 

 to fit a shoe, as a covering and defence to it, of a description 

 which, while it admits of being nailed to the foot, affords every 

 facility nf applying and removing dressings, and at the same 



